'I'm going to sort out a few things,' I said after a while. 'Don't move from here and don't tell anyone who you really are. Understand?'

'Yes.'

'Who are you?'

'Hamlet, Prince of . . . just kidding. I'm your cousin Eddie.'

'Good. And you have cream on your nose.'

6
SpecOps

'The Special Operations Network was the agency that looked after areas too specialised to be undertaken by the regular police. There were over thirty SpecOps divisions. SO-1 policed us all, SO-12 were the ChronoGuard and SO-13 dealt with re-engineered species. SO-17 were the ''Vampire and Werewolf Disposal Operations" and SO-32 the Horticultural Enforcement Agency. I had been in SO-27, the Literary Detectives. Ten years authenticating Milton and tracking down forged Shakespeareana. After my work actually within fiction it all seemed a bit tame. At Jurisfiction I could catch a horse as it bolted – in the Literary Detectives it was like wandering around a very large field armed with only a halter and a photograph of a carrot.'

THURSDAY NEXT – Private Journals

I pushed open the door to the station and walked in. The building was shared with Swindon's regular force and seemed slightly shabbier than I remembered. The walls were the same dismal shade of green and I could smell the faint aroma of boiled cabbage from the canteen on the second floor. In truth, my stay here in late '85 had not actually been that long – most of my SpecOps career had been undertaken in London.

I walked over to the main desk, expecting to see Sergeant Ross. He had been replaced by someone who seemed too young to be a police officer, much less a desk sergeant.

'I'm here to get my old job back,' I announced.

'Which was?'

'Literary Detective.'

He chuckled. Unkindly, I thought.

'You'll need to see the commander,' he replied without taking his gaze from the book he was scribbling in. 'Name?'

'Thursday Next.'

A hush descended slowly on the room, beginning with those closest to me and moving outwards with my whispered name like ripples in a pool. Within a few moments I was being stared at in silence by at least two dozen assorted police and SpecOps officers, a couple of Gaskell impersonators and an ersatz Colendge. I gave an embarrassed smile and looked from blank face to blank face, trying to figure out whether to run, or to fight, or what. My heart beat faster as a young officer quite close to me reached into his breast pocket and pulled out . . . a notebook.

'Please,' he said, 'I wonder if I might have your autograph?'

'Well, of course.'

I breathed a sigh of relief, and pretty soon I was having my back slapped and being congratulated on the whole Jane Eyre adventure. I'd forgotten the celebrity thing but also noticed that there were officers in the room who were interested in me for another reason – SO-1, probably.

'I need to see Bowden Cable,' I said to the desk sergeant, realising that if anyone could help, it was my old partner. He smiled, picked up a phone, announced me and wrote out a visitor's pass, then told me to go to interview suite sixteen on the third floor. I thanked my new-found acquaintances, made my way to the elevators and ascended to the third floor. When the lift doors rattled open I walked with a hurried step towards room sixteen. Halfway there I was accosted by Bowden, who slid his arm in mine and steered me into an empty office.